


Dec 20: Stealing Home

by fleurofthecourt



Series: White Collar Advent calendar drabbles [20]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Family, Gen, Home, Leaving Home, Multi, Post-Finale, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 14:35:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2815622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurofthecourt/pseuds/fleurofthecourt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s an odd thing to steal, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dec 20: Stealing Home

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really sorry about the really corny ending; I couldn't help myself.

It’s an odd thing to steal, really. It’s poorly fitted, the sleeves are much too long, and the tie is not particularly eye-popping. 

But Neal isn’t exactly planning on wearing the suit Peter caught him in (twice). He’s just preventing Peter from wearing it to his funeral, or anything of that sort, in some sort of weird show of sentimentality. 

Or, at least, that’s what he tells Peter when he finally asks if Neal knows anything about its disappearance, some three years down the road. 

What he doesn’t say is that he needed something to cling to, to remind him that though he was alone, he wasn’t always, that he wouldn’t always be. 

Because, yes, he makes a considerable number of acquaintances during his time abroad, but there’s not a single one that he cares for like Mozzie and El or trusts like Peter. 

He misses them. 

Not keeping any of them in the loop was the hardest, but most important, part of his plan -- he knows what The Pink Panthers are capable of. What they could and would do to Mozzie, Peter, and El, given the chance. (What El would do to him, if something happened to Peter, because he didn’t keep his promise). 

And he can’t have that. 

He has a real home here, in New York, unlike anyone one he’s had before, not just in the city that he loves, but in the hearts of these three people. 

But he can’t take any of it with him. 

So he does the next best thing, and shoves Peter’s suit, a pack of Mozzie’s cards, and one of El’s catering plates into the small duffel he’s taking on his flight to Rome -- to his bus to Nice -- to his train to Paris. 

He pats absently at Satchmo’s fur as he resets the Burke’s security alarm and whispers, “We’ll have Paris, someday.”


End file.
